About the Initiative

On August 29th, 2005, the United States Gulf Coast experienced the most destructive hurricane in the nation's history. Hurricane Katrina inflicted an estimated $81 billion to $125 billion of damage and more than 1,8002 people were killed. Vulnerable communities in southern Louisiana and Mississippi were thrown into crisis as they took the brunt of the storm and experienced devastating post-storm impacts such as the breaking of levees in New Orleans. Less than a month later on September 24th, 2005, another storm, Hurricane Rita, hit the Gulf Coast along the Louisiana-Texas border. Hurricane Rita bombarded communities still recovering from Hurricane Katrina, causing an estimated $10 billion of damage and killing at least 62 people.

After the devastation of these communities, those affected by the hurricanes had a myriad of legal needs in addition to basic survival needs. Many local attorneys, however, were displaced, and legal infrastructures in many communities were wiped out due to limited staff support and lack of office space, funding, electricity, and technological resources. In response, Equal Justice Works implemented an innovative legal aid disaster relief program to assist a number of the communities affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The program, designated the Katrina Legal Initiative, was comprised of three components: the Katrina Legal Fellowship program, the AmeriCorps Legal Fellowship program, and the Summer Corps program. The Katrina and AmeriCorps Legal Fellowships provided funding for public interest legal organizations in the Gulf Coast region to serve as host sites for both local and out-of-state attorneys. The Summer Corps program provided AmeriCorps education award vouchers to first- and second-year law students for service within public interest legal agencies during the summer. In total, 125 attorneys and law students were placed by the Katrina Legal Initiative in the Gulf Coast region to assist those affected by the disasters. Between July 2008 and June 2009, the Urban Institute conducted research and evaluation of the Katrina Legal Initiative. Visit http://urban.org/publications/411946.html for more information and to download the report.

- Sara Debus & Seri Irazola, "Delivering Legal Aid after Katrina: The Equal Justice Works Katrina Legal Initiative." The Urban Institute, August 2009.

Survivors of the Storm: Securing Justice in Post-Katrina America

At the 2007 Awards Dinner, Equal Justice Works paid tribute to the attorneys working in the Gulf Coast region. Video/Action produced this film to recognize their work.

Katrina Initiative Funders

Equal Justice Works thanks the following donors for their contributions to fund the Equal Justice Works Katrina Initiative:

• ALM
• Association of Corporate Counsel
• Bingham McCutchen
• Corporation for National and Community Service
• Debevoise & Plimpton LLP
• Gilbert Heintz & Randolph LLP
• Greenberg Traurig, LLP
• JEHT Foundation
• Latham & Watkins LLP
• Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo P.C.
• Nixon Peabody LLP
• Ohio State Bar Foundation Hurricane Katrina Legal Relief Fund
• Pfizer Inc
• Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP